Rembrandt’s formative period began in Leiden in 1620 and ended when he moved to Amsterdam around 1631. By then he was a successful painter who had taken on his first pupils. There is no single style that characterises Rembrandt’s art during those years, but rather a variety of languages through which the painter sought to express the feelings of the main figures of his compositions.

A few of Rembrandt’s works from the late 1620s show the influence of Rubens (1577-1640), by then the most famous artist in Europe whose oeuvre he was familiar with chiefly through engravings. For over a decade, until approximately 1645, Rubens provided Rembrandt with both an artistic and a professional model to imitate, which spurred his ambition to become a great painter.